


a house is not a home (but you make this house work)

by stevebuckiest



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Beefy Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Internalized Male Issues, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Chores, Daddy Kink, Domestic Bliss, Flashbacks, Hand Jobs, Happy Sex, House Cleaning, Laundry, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Period-Typical Sexism, Pet Names, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Russian Bucky Barnes, Slice of Life, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Teasing, because i just think thats Nice and very Steve and very Bucky, full disclosure it’s less of a kink and more of a line about it being a formerly domestic nickname, housework can be fun!, its said twice so if thats not your thing you dont have to look too hard, or happy handjobs anyways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:40:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29581089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevebuckiest/pseuds/stevebuckiest
Summary: “Let’s get to it then.” He sways back in for a sweet peck against Bucky’s cheek. “It’s time for you to finally learn how to do your own laundry.”(alternatively: bucky hates laundry but he sure likes loving on steve)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	a house is not a home (but you make this house work)

**Author's Note:**

> i debated over putting in the daddy thing or not just because i know it isn’t much of everyone’s preference and it has a tendency to make the tags look like porn. which no shame! but for me that’s not what this is, and in my humble gay opinion i think for guys like steve and bucky, it’s more of a sweet nickname than a set lifestyle. part of their dynamic? yes. really maybe more of a reflection of just how much bucky likes being able to take care if steve and the little ways steve sometimes likes to let him. i watched a lot of retro tv growing up so maybe that’s where this stems from. 
> 
> in any case, i hope you enjoy this edition of “specific feels and stevebucky scenes from my mind”. i also hate doing laundry, bucky, but it must be done ... even if it’s not sooner so much as later. but that’s what slow saturdays are for, right?

Growing up, Bucky can admit that he didn’t really help out _exactly_ as much as he should have around the house, at least in the literal sense. 

He was raised to be the breadwinner, after all. The oldest brother, the only boy, the healthiest, the strongest. The one who was supposed to succeed and carry on the Barnes’ name (which is a bit ironic, Bucky supposes, seeing as he couldn’t remember that was his name for the better part of a century). As such, he was expected to be working from the time he could pull his own britches up, whether that be on his schoolwork, on finding a wife, _whatever_. The real jobs came later, but the mindset of being the future _man of the house_ (or man when his father wasn’t around, much to his sisters’ annoyance) was pretty much there since birth. 

As a product of that, sometimes he was a bit of a bother as a kid, at least when it came to the things not typically expected from him but that could have come if he was less of a shit. Things like helping in the kitchen. Or cleaning. Cooking. Pretty much all the chores that weren’t what was considered as _manly_ as taking out the trash. He grew up in a time where misogyny and male chauvinism were staples, and although he likes to think he had never been _that_ much of an asshole about it- he knows he wasn’t unaffected by the expectations, either. 

He can remember watching Winifred make their meals as a kid, hanging off her apron strings with eyes fixed on her hand stirring the pot of whatever they were having that night placed on the stovetop. It was fascinating to him, focusing on the way it smelled, the way it steamed, the way it eventually _tasted_ . He had almost asked if he could give it a try, once. But that was when he was little. That was before he heard all the other boys talk about how the kitchen was where _girls_ were supposed to go. Boys didn’t bake, apparently. They barely even were supposed to step foot in the kitchen except to eat. 

Even back then, Bucky thought it was kind of dumb considering these same conversations began with the claim that men were the ones putting all the food on the table to begin with. So he was supposed to provide food he couldn’t even help prepare? Talk about pointless. 

It was pointless, but he was also six and susceptible to things he heard the other kids talk about. Bucky’s never been a follower, except when it comes to following Steve, but even that was and still is more of a _take the backseat_ situation than a sidekick one. The serum hasn’t changed his ability to still push Steve around in private sometimes, even if the other boy always was prone to pushing back. 

Back then, though- Bucky wasn’t _following_ so much as soaking in the sentiments it seemed that everyone around him was trying to give off. Boys trying to be men providing most of them, but men trying to be _more_ providing the rest. His father wasn’t necessarily one of them, but there was nothing to suggest the opposite either. 

George Barnes never helped make their dinner or darn their socks. The most he did was help Winifred put the dishes away in cabinets she couldn’t reach, or buy the fabric for the new tablecloth she was trying to make for their next Thanksgiving dinner. He provided the pretty things and the food for their pantry, but he didn’t partake in things after that. 

What else was Bucky supposed to assume besides that he was going to be brought up to do the same? He was almost seven and already had a little sister capable of helping Winifred cook on her own. He wasn’t needed to help with supper. He was _needed_ to be a man. _The_ man, someday. 

After the realization of all those expectations sank in, he didn’t watch his Ma in the kitchen as much. Why watch her do something that he apparently wasn’t allowed to have? In his own house, at least… At the Rogers’, things were a little different _._

Over there there were no _real men_ around. When it came down to it, there were mostly no men at all. Sarah wasn’t someone who seemed to want to move on after her husband passed, which was before Bucky (or even Steve) was a present part of her life. Joseph wasn’t around, but the need to have a job _was_ , so to work she went. Sarah Rogers was a working woman well before the Depression dug in its claws and caused so many other women to suddenly have to be the same. 

More often than not, her work as a nurse meant she had to take the night shifts, and until Steve was old enough, sent him to the neighbor’s. Sometimes she let him be by himself in the apartment if Bucky was supposed to come around, but that was only with the promise that they would stay out of trouble and take care of things while she wasn’t there. That last bit was probably more of a measure meant to preoccupy them than anything, but Steve, even as a kid, took the responsibility seriously. 

Bucky might have considered himself the man of his house when his father wasn’t around, but Steve lived in a house where his father had never been around to begin with. He lived in a house where he was maybe the only man it would ever see, also while having no one to teach him how to be a _man_ at all. Steve didn’t have expectations. He didn’t even have directions. 

He had to start making his own meals and mending his own clothes (because after the first of the fights he started getting into had finished, _Sarah_ started refusing to fix clothes she knew he’d just mess up again) while Bucky was at home refusing to do anything near the same. Not that anyone really asked him to. He had three younger sisters to take care of the housework. _He_ was supposed to take care of _them,_ which wasn’t a hardship even with everything else that the expectations denied him. He liked taking care of people. He still does. 

Back then, Steve seemed to need taking care of too, though it’s only now that Bucky’s finally gotten him to fully accept it even though the _need_ has essentially gone away. He can take care of himself now. He doesn’t need Bucky’s help anymore, not in the literal sense that he used to- Steve might have taught himself how to tend to the house and his own wounds while Sarah was away, but there were a few things Bucky helped him learn too. 

_Being a man_ is something that nowadays has less of literal meaning- not knowing how to shave or swim or smoke isn’t something that dampens the definition anymore. But, it had been back in the days that they spent trying to become one, so those were the things that Bucky spent time trying to teach him during their pre-teen years. He was just proud he already knew how to do them in the first place. 

What’s funny now is that the both of them barely use those skills, considering Bucky’s beard prevents him from having to shave and Steve even after the serum never grew much steady facial hair in the first place. They both stopped smoking sometime in the war when cigarettes got scarce and toothpaste to wash the stale taste of them from their mouths was even scarcer. Swimming isn’t really something Steve likes to partake in very often after the events of the Valkyrie or something Bucky much bothers with thanks to the weight of the metal arm. 

In all honesty, the skills Steve himself learned or was taught by Sarah were what came in handy during the war- God knows both their clothes needed more mending than ever before. Even before that, though, they came into play once the two of them decided to move in together after Sarah’s passing. 

Bucky knows even now with his shit for brains memories that part of his motives was worrying about the need to provide for Steve. At least half of that was because they had finally pulled their heads out of their asses at that point and finally gotten together- what kind of boyfriend would Bucky be if he didn’t make sure his fella got enough to eat?- but the other half that worried Steve would have trouble scraping together enough to survive … well, Bucky was smart enough to keep that to himself. 

Making their home together, Bucky no longer had his Ma and sisters so easily accessible around to keep house, but there still wasn’t much of an opportunity for him to learn how. Sure, he had more of a motive to clean up his own messes, because the Lord knew Steve was not about to pick up his socks when they smelled like _that_ thanks to everything he’d sweat out down at the docks- but he also really was meant to be the man of the house now. Or one of them, at least. The one whose body allowed him to bear more of the brunt of the financial burdens that seemed to follow every move that they had to make. Medicine wasn’t cheap, nor were meals, nor was making rent. 

Bucky never really resented having to work the heavier lifting jobs, because he knew Steve would have liked to. But- and Steve hated hearing this so Bucky never said it- he couldn’t. Not with all the chronic issues and coughs that always seemed to plague him. It forced him to stick to things like sketching for the papers and painting windows at the grocery store when they both knew he wanted to be doing something different. Working down at the docks and on graveyard shifts cleaning up at the gym was more Bucky’s speed than Steve’s, but that was the problem, wasn’t it? Steve always wanted to be able to go faster, do more than what his body allowed. 

_Bucky_ may never have resented working harder jobs than him, but Steve- Steve hated it with as much passion as he always put into everything else. He’d hated it, but as a result had been more than happy to make sure Bucky at least had something good to come back home to whenever his days at work were all said and done. Making sure he was giving _and_ getting, as it were. 

And Steve may not have cleaned up all Bucky’s messes, but he wasn’t adverse to making most of their (admittedly scant) meals if it meant it’d be easier on the other once he walked into their apartment as exhausted as he often was. Hard work, heavy lifting- it had a toll on him, even if it was one Bucky was more than willing to let it take so long as Steve was taken care of too. 

He usually had dinner prepared by the time Bucky got back from the docks, dirt streaked and beaten half into the ground, stomach already growling gratefully for whatever Steve was about to give him. It was something that went mostly unspoken save for the soft murmurs of “thank you, sweetheart” that Bucky always pressed into his hair once they both had eaten, both of them eager to get the dishes done and dried so they could finally fall back down together after their too-long tired days. 

Bucky learned to do _some_ chores, at least. He wasn’t a complete heathen. In truth, he learned how to do a lot on his own during the occasions that Steve was sick and couldn’t sit up right let alone get a meal ready- Bucky’s own _meals_ may have been mostly watered down soup from cans, but he thinks it was the thought that counted. It wasn’t the same as what he saw his Ma stirring on the stove as a kid, but it was something. Even if he couldn’t even really be grateful to have it when it came at the cost of Steve’s health taking a downward turn. 

But taking away one of the only things he knew made Steve feel useful when he was having a good stretch out of sickness… Bucky couldn’t do that, either. Besides, it wasn’t like Bucky was keen on begging to do the rest of the housework. 

If he had ever wanted to do that, they wouldn’t be where they are now, would they?

Bucky laughs as Steve scowls and snatches another shirt tossed at him off of where it’s landed on his head. Bucky’s always had good aim- especially when what he’s aiming for is to get Steve riled up. Not that that’s ever been very hard.

He might be as tall as Bucky is now, but his temper is as short as ever, fuse still easily lit. And Bucky _does_ love to see him blow (in more than one way, he means). Hence how much fun he’s been having make him huff at every turn today while he tries to convince Bucky to help him do the chores. 

They had managed to make it through doing the dishes no issue, but everything after breakfast has been a bust. _Breakfast_ had been butter and honey slathered on toast, because Bucky knows they both like to savor the luxury of being able to enjoy sweet things now that they have the means, and _he_ likes savoring the luxury of being able to serve it up. Providing for them still, even though both their pay makes it for nothing more than his own pleasure. 

He’s finally got that wish of being able to be in the kitchen without having an internalized conniption, at least- which is great. He’s really happy about that and all the other _conniptions_ he’s been able to curb from happening that stem from bigger, more Soldier-adjacent issues as well, he really is. But cooking is the one part of minding the house that he enjoys, he’s come to find out. Everything else… well, everything else he could do without. Which is exactly where their current situation comes into play. 

Steve’s been pestering him to learn how to do the laundry for nearly three months now, and the excuses Bucky has about not being able to work the machine with one arm have run out thanks to the fact he got a new one attached just last week. This one is Shuri’s tech rather than Soviet, which is something he’s grateful for, griping about having to go through all the pockets before putting their clothes into the machine aside. 

Still, Steve says it’s necessary, but Bucky just thinks it’s _tedious._ He’s got a bad memory, sure, but nothing much goes in his pockets besides his knives (and even then, he has a new thigh holster that he’s been testing out for size). It would take a lot for him to forget about what weapons he has on him with the way his brain is wired. And Steve- he has an eidetic memory, for crying out loud. What could he have possibly forgotten that he put in his pockets?

Come to find a few seconds later, the answer is chapstick, apparently. Tinted red and flavored apple pie, which is so on the nose for who Steve is that Bucky can’t help but smile when he tosses the tube at him next instead of the jeans now draped over his shoulder. It’s a shame Steve’s ass isn’t filling them like usual, but if they were, Bucky wouldn’t be able to see the ass in question where it is right now, clad in grey cotton athletic shorts and bobbing down in front of him where Steve’s scooping clothes out of the drier. He also would have missed the unimpressed look that the owner of it gives him once the offending chapstick bounces off his lower back and falls to land on top of a pile of freshly dried socks instead. 

One of the crew socks Steve’s currently wearing is slipping down his calf, Bucky notes, but he doesn’t say anything just yet. Steve’s beat him to talking. 

“ _Bucky_ ,” he complains. “Quit throwing stuff at me before something falls in between the machines.” He turns back to take a last few shirts out to dump into the hamper he has in hand, expression still the same when holding it out for Bucky to set to the side so they can start to switch loads. “We got lots more work to do. The bedding still has to be put in.”

“Yeah, we dirtied it up pretty good last night, didn’t we?” Bucky’s drawl only makes Steve’s scowl turn scarlet on top, but it makes Bucky snort on his own end. Steve’s sometimes sullen attitude is something he’s accustomed to by now. “You trying to imply you don’t want to do it again?” He steps closer, jeans thrown over his shoulder rubbing coarse against his clavicle where it’s exposed by the neck of his tank top dipping down. “You saying you don’t want _me_ to do you again, sweetheart?”

Steve makes a soft sound when Bucky presses up against his back, mismatched hands wrapping around his waist to press at his stomach between where the washing machine is still open in front of him. His ears are glowing red, even more than how lit up his hair has gone in the sun shining in through the window. 

Bucky hears him take a deep breath in, one that comes out as a sigh when he exhales through his nose with the first touch of Bucky’s lips against the blonde baby hairs growing on the nape of his neck. “What I want,” he murmurs, head tipping to the side even as he’s obviously trying to sound stern, as if that’s ever his forte with Bucky having him feeling like this, “What I want…” he tries again, but sighs again when Bucky’s stubble scrapes over one of the sensitive spots under his ear. “ _Buck_ …”

Bucky grins, liking where this is going. “Yeah, baby? What do you want?” he hums. He holds his flesh hand flat against Steve’s belly, slipped up under the soft blue t-shirt he’s got on today in order to slump around the house. They were supposed to be having a lazy Saturday, but _someone_ has apparently decided to leave out the lazy. Bucky decides to be sweet on him anyways. “How about I give you _whatever_ you want?”

Steve wiggles around and for a moment Bucky thinks he’s broken him away from being fixated on finishing their chores, but that’s before he accidentally shifts them both forward a little too much and has Steve’s bare skin pressing up flush against the washing machine where the metal is nowhere near as warm as that of Bucky’s left hand. Steve lets out a noise of disagreement, which makes Bucky back off immediately before he realizes what’s happened thanks to the fully body shiver the frigid feeling has Steve shaking off.

After, Steve really is turning to him this time. He reaches out with an anxious expression, like he thinks he’s spooked Bucky off. “Sorry. Was just a little chilly.” He still has the goosebumps on his arms to prove it. 

Bucky lets himself be reeled back in gladly, giving Steve a smile and tug to the strand of hair that’s fallen between where they’re no standing face to face. He makes sure to cup his cheek with his warm hand after. “Sorry. Forgot not all metal is as warm as mine,” he jokes. 

Steve rolls his eyes. He’s used to Bucky referring to himself as a cyborg by now, even if he doesn’t like it. “‘S’fine. Just surprised me a little.”

“Still,” Bucky says, slightly apologetic. “I know you don’t like the cold.” That’s a truth neither of them like to follow back to its roots, but Bucky really does feel a little bad. He kisses him again to make up for it, this time with Steve’s stomach pressed up tight against his own instead. Then, after they both pull back away (or as far as they can get with Bucky’s arm still around his waist), “Need me to warm you up again?” He makes sure his smile slides back into being suggestive. 

He still has housework to avoid, after all. 

Unfortunately, as sweetly as Steve had sank into the kiss, he seems to have not fallen for the distraction Bucky tried to trick him with. He cocks his head and gives Bucky one of those trademark _Captain America Is Disappointed In You_ expressions that are always too cute to work quite as well as Steve wants. “We still have work to do.”

Bucky cocks his head right back. “We could take a break,” he counters. Steve’s not the only one who knows how to push back. Bucky’s the one who taught him how to push properly in the first place, if he’s getting literal. Steve might have been fiery, but he didn’t learn how to fight out of nowhere. 

Steve sighs and is fed up enough with him to have to thunk his head against his shoulder (the soft one, luckily) before letting out an answer. Bucky can smell his shampoo from here. He must have used the peppermint. “How about we take a break while the next load of the wash is going, Buck?” he offers, voice clearly hopeful. “We’ll have some time to kill then. Two birds with one stone.”

Bucky grins, triumphant. “I’ve got much more pleasant plans for you than _killing_ ,” he tells him, pulling on his hair yet again. If Steve ever starts losing hair, it’ll probably be from that. “I already get enough of that on the weekdays.” It’s true. Work isn’t as bloody as it used to be by any means, but it isn’t a walk in the park either, even after he’s been cleared because of the reattached arm and trauma report from his therapist finally winning Fury over. 

Steve makes a face, but leans forward on his toes to kiss the corner of Bucky’s mouth where the only grey shown up in his facial hair so far sits. He has a self proclaimed soft spot for it. “What about enough of this?” he jokes quietly, clearly referring to the kiss. 

As if Bucky wouldn’t prefer kissing over killing any day, especially if it’s with Steve as his subject. He nudges his nose with his own, right by the bump on its bridge that his own soft spot centers around. “Could never get enough of this.” That’s true too. Laundry might not be one of life’s simple pleasures Bucky can say he’s sad about missing out on for so long, but laundry with Steve… that he can live with. Living is something he’s found that’s best done with Steve anyways, at least for him. 

That’s a sentiment he won’t take back even when Steve decides to be a little _shit_ like does next, tone far too chipper when he removes his arms from around Bucky’s back and clasps them behind his own instead. “Let’s get to it then.” He sways back in for a sweet peck against Bucky’s cheek. “It’s time for you to finally learn how to do your own laundry.”

Bucky groans but lets Steve tug him by the strap of his tank so that they’re standing side by side in front of the washing machine with a hamper full of the dirty clothes he’d been throwing at Steve not ten minutes prior stacked on the flat top of the drier ready to be loaded inside. “This was not the first purpose I saw my shiny new prosthetic being used for,” he says under his breath. 

“Machines make it a whole lot easier than before,” Steve chirps. “Not that you were doing it much yourself anyways.” 

It’s said too casually to be a barb, but Bucky still winces a little anyways. It’s true that washing his own clothes wasn’t a life skill of his that had seen very much action before or even during the war, all things considered- they were lucky to even get to clean themselves then. There were no clean socks so much as dry ones, which makes looking at the mountain of them in the basket on the floor a little surreal to even see. Trenchfoot was a real fright for them back then, so socks were a luxury not to be taken lightly. 

Now, their socks aren’t a commodity so much as a comfort. They have a collection of them, actually, all sorts of patterns and prints that might seem silly for two grown super soldiers to have but are privately something special between them. They’re reminders, really, worn under their uniform boots or after missions gone wrong to help remind themselves that they’re human under the personas. That they’re _together_ no matter what the world has tried to take, and they can have something as soft and silly as fuzzy socks if they damn well please. And they do. Please, that is. 

Steve’s doing just that with his eyes right now, pleading for Bucky to get back with the program and push the buttons he’s pointed out as the ones to start a simple load of darks and denim. “You put the clothes in and the sensors will automatically tell you what size the load is. Neat, huh?” He looks a little too excited about telling Bucky about it, and Bucky smiles to himself knowing it’s because science used to be a special interest of his that Steve witnessed making a comeback when they were in Wakanda. 

It’s just a washing machine and they’ve both seen tech ten times as fancy with all the places they’ve been and what’s attached to Bucky’s body as they speak, but that doesn’t matter when Steve’s mouth is turned up at the mere thought of Bucky being impressed. Who would Bucky be to deny him that? He isn’t _that_ impressed, although it is kind of nice to see how far things have come since the washboards his Ma used to use for their Sunday best on Wednesday nights to prepare for church and clotheslines that used to string all the apartment buildings together.

He gives Steve’s face a smile and his butt a squeeze while bumping their hips together, chucking fondly at the huff it elicits. Those running shorts sure do a lot for his ass. They might need to toss those in the next load if Bucky’s breaktime activities go to plan. “My Ma sure would have appreciated this a hell of a lot after all of us were born.” Four babies and four rounds of diapers definitely wasn’t easy. 

Steve nods, a bit wistfully. “Mine would have too with all the bloodstains she had to make me soak.” He laughs. “Pants were pretty much a patchwork after a while. Remember when that Wilkins kid made me tear my church shirt?”

Bucky whistles and uses his metal hand to hold the basket steady while he starts scooping their clothes into the wash chamber. “Christ, I thought she was gonna tear _you_ a new one. Couldn’t believe she let us see her swear on a Sunday.”

“My ear was so bruised by the end of it I thought it might fall off,” Steve says, watching Bucky work with a hand tapping on the washer’s edge. “I always told her that was what made my hearing so bad on that side. Said she tugged it clean out.” The memory is mellow, bittersweet in the way all the best ones are. 

Bucky turns to brush his temple with a kiss, basket empty and joining to stack on top of another current unused one on the floor. “Show me how to fire it up?”

Steve nods, perking right back up with the request. “Just gotta push the button to make sure the temperature is right,” he lists, one fingers pointing to where Bucky presses his next. “Then you pull down the lid, check the screen, and if everything is good to go, you press start.”

“Easy enough,” Bucky murmurs, shutting the top as Steve had instructed and making sure everything seems right before hitting start with his thumb. The machine beeps out a little melody while it whirs to get the washing starting, and Bucky smiles faintly. Fine, maybe he is a _little_ impressed. Who knew laundry could be so cute. 

Or maybe that’s just because Steve is in the room. Bucky turns, ready for his promised break, but Steve’s expression isn’t the slightest bit regretful when he shakes his head yet again and gestures to the stack of still sopping clothes behind him in yet another basket. Christ, they have so many they could open a laundromat, but that’s what happens when you have to change as often as they do. Thanks to work, working _out_ , and… other activities. 

Bucky groans. Those other activities aren’t happening today as soon as he thought. What else is the weekend for? “You’re gonna make me bend down and do the dryer too?” he says skeptically, stretching and arching intentionally so that a sliver of his stomach is showing above the waist of the grey sweats he has thrown on and Steve’s eyes slip down to it. He scratches at the grey in his beard after for good measure. “My back’s not what it used to be. You really gonna make your old man do all that moving?” He only started out a year older, but eh. Semantics. 

Steve crosses his arms to try and look intimidating, but unconsciously tucks his hand under his bicep and against his side the way he almost always does so that it looks like he’s hugging himself instead and again comes off as more endearing than intended. “Considering you’re trying to use your _moves_ on me, I’d say you’re fine,” he snorts. He puts big eyes on the basket then gives Bucky a look. “You gonna take care of it before they mildew?”

“Someone’s feeling bossy today,” Bucky grumbles, but he gets the basket and starts throwing the clothing into the dryer without further complaint. The fabric makes a wet _slap_ with every land inside. “I’ll see if I can take care of that during our break. _Brat_.” It’s said with the same exasperated affection that _punk_ so often is. They pretty much have the same meeting anyways. 

Steve hums and looks happy with himself, so that must have been the reaction he was expecting. The suspicion is only reinforced with his next words spoken, somehow snarky and sweet at the same time. “You always take care of me, Buck.”

Bucky puffs up a little at that even with how pointedly it’s said. “Damn right.” Then, more focused, “Now how do you work this damn dryer?” He’s a man with a mission after all. 

Steve snorts at the sudden determination, but doesn’t hesitate to lean over the dryer’s ledge to point Bucky to where the dial and what apparently is called a _lint panel_ are. “This ones a little simpler. You just twist this knob to whatever level of drying you want done and tap the center of it to make things start turning. I usually use energy efficient, but wrinkle free works too.” He gives Bucky a serious look, like what he’s about to say is a lot more life and death than it actually is. “Unless you’re drying jeans. Then it should be high heat or they’ll come out damp.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Bucky agrees, echoing Steve’s instructions with his own actions, carrying them out until all that’s inside the dryer is tumbling around and it’s _finally_ time for them to take that break Bucky’s been waiting for. He turns to Steve once more, this time not even pausing to read his expression before he’s tugging the other man closer and crowding him up against the dryer he’d just started and shut. 

Steve tries to groan, but it comes out a laugh when Bucky intentionally tickles at his neck with his beard, mismatched hands going down to his waist while Steve’s come up to rest on the outsides of their corresponding shoulders. “I don’t suppose you feel like getting a head start on folding clothes?”

“No,” Bucky says, firm and final punctuated with a kiss to the mole in the middle of his neck next to his Adam’s apple. “You’re a man of your word and you promised me a break, sunshine. So we’re taking one.” He uses his prosthetic next to brush Steve’s bangs back where his hair has fallen down without it’s usual product. “Besides, I got this new arm to fight crime, not fold clothes.”

“But feeling up your boyfriend is okay?” Steve tries his best not to sigh, but sinks into the kiss Bucky sucks into the side of his jaw despite it, hand still in his hair. Steve’s own comes up, touching more tentatively to tuck the loose strands of Bucky’s half bun back behind his ear. “You’ve got double standards, Buck.”

“Don’t need to remember how to fold clothes,” Bucky says. “I get by just fine as it is.” 

That’s a half truth, considering how he’d been dressing before Steve sought him out in Bucharest. In his defense, Bucky didn’t exactly know washing clothes was a _thing_ until he’d gotten out of the States and stuck to properly living around people again. Or trying to, at least. He’d taken to throwing out clothes after they got too grimy, because he had to constantly keep changing his look anyways- wearing baseball caps to conceal his hair and gloves to conceal the arm could only go so far, and he barely had the vulnerability to wash himself at some points, let alone wash the last layers of what made his body feel safe. 

He probably hadn’t smelled the greatest, all things considered, but even the stale scent of sweat and his torn up, tangled appearance hadn’t scared Steve away once he finally caught up with him. Bucky’s not really sure about what happened to his clothes after Steve brought him in and he finally got to change into something clean. He kinda hopes they burned them, even if the maroon henley had grown on him in more than just the literal grimy sense. The ones he has now are much more comfortable, anyways. 

Steve squints at him but is kind enough not to call him out. On that, at least. He still points out another flaw in the argument. “Buck, you were one of the best dressed people I knew back in the day. I’m surprised you didn’t ask your Ma to iron your socks.”

Bucky smiles a little at that. His memory might be shit on a good day now, but he still remembers how proud he’d been of that pin-stripe suit he’d had. His first purchase after he was given his first real paycheck, complete with the shiny leather shoes his grandmother had so generously gifted him for his birthday the year before she died. He misses that suit even more than the henley. “I would have if I didn’t know _she_ would have walloped me for it.”

Steve hums and holds Bucky a little tighter, picking up on the tone of melancholy making its way into his voice. “Don’t think I won’t do that too if you ask me.”

Snorting, Bucky presses Steve back closer against the dryer, fingers digging into his hips through the cotton of his shorts. “What, I taught you how to tie a tie but you ironing my socks is taking it too far? C’mon, Stevie.” He curls him in for a kiss, next words coming out as an over the top croon that makes Steve’s eyes crinkle up at the sides. “Help me out here.”

Huffing, Steve tries to scoff, but his breath hitches instead when Bucky bites down on his neck. Nothing comes out for a second besides a slow sigh, but then- “We have less than an hour until the wash is done. Don’t know if I have much time to be of any _help_ here.” He’s clearly referring to how Bucky has crowded between his legs and bent his back halfway over the dryer just to dip him into an easier position to kiss. 

But Bucky _did_ say Steve was always wanting to be able to go faster, and he’s nothing if not a fast man himself- so he just smiles and slips a hand up under Steve’s shirt, sinking him into yet another kiss that warms him from head to toe. Whether that’s because of the way Steve always makes him feel or the hum of the dryer and ray of sun shining behind them, he doesn’t know, but he guesses it doesn’t matter. Not when he’s got Steve going so sweet and clingy pressed up against his chest. 

“Guess we better hurry up then,” he says, voice husky. “Hold on tight.” Bucky doesn’t even give Steve a chance to ask what’s coming that makes that necessary before he’s hauling him up by the bottoms of each thigh, tops of his asscheeks peeking out where his shorts have ridden up and pressing against the warmed metal of the dryer when Bucky finally settles down to sit him on top of it. 

Steve still starts a little at the sudden change in setting, but doesn’t shiver this time thanks to how warm the machine has things running. The temperature is reflected in the flush on his cheeks, though Bucky notes with a smirk that he knows it’s from a different reason. Steve actually _likes_ being picked up and pushed around by Bucky now that he’s no longer so little. 

That doesn’t keep him from still complaining about it, though. Case and point, the smack he lands on Bucky’s back where he’s still holding round a moment later, ears gone red again at the tips. “Jesus, Buck. Warn a guy next time, would you?” 

Bucky just pinches his prosthetic’s fingers at the crease where Steve’s thigh meets his hip, exposed by the cotton that’s still shoved up to show enough skin for him to get distracted by. Although any of Steve’s skin is enough for that, if he’s being honest. “But you sound so cute when you’re surprised,” he teases. 

The shocky little sounds are something he’s partial to pulling from Steve whenever he can now that they’re more common in good contexts than in a crisis. Getting his kicks in by creeping up on Steve and scaring him with arms around his sides isn’t something Bucky could have done back when the blonde’s heart might have given out if it skipped more beats than it was already being blessed with. But now…

He nuzzles Steve’s neck, one hand wrapping around the back of it to bend head down down to a more easily accessible level. “‘Sides, you like it when I have my way with you, sweetheart. Don’t try and pretend.”

Steve hums into the kiss that next kiss that Bucky leads him into, but doesn’t disagree or even respond until it’s done, lips redder than when they’d started and probably in need of some of that chapstick of his that Bucky tossed at him earlier. “And people say _I’m_ the stubborn one.”

“You are, punk,” Bucky says, because he _is_ and they both know it. “Just must’ve rubbed off on me somewhere along the line.”

That’s what _Bucky_ would like to be doing on _him_ right now. Rubbing off, that is. Steve just looks so lovely like this, lit up and lazy in the light coming in through the windows. It’s got his hair glowing so gold that he looks like he’s got a halo around his head. Bucky sinks the fingers of his flesh hand into it just to feel how soft the strands are sticking to the tips with how the sun has them both heated up. 

“My angel, though,” he murmurs. “You gonna let me spend my break loving on you like I want or what, blondie?” He pets his hand up over his thigh, admiring how the fine layer of hair covering him down there is glowing gold as well. It makes Bucky feel a little like he’s touching something precious and ethereal (because really he is, isn’t he?), lean legs that are still somehow so powerful even despite the serum leaving them a little more slender than his own. Steve might not be a good dancer, but sometimes Bucky thinks he’s got the build of one. 

Steve exhales slowly and wraps both of the legs Bucky was just looking at around his waist, socked feet finding a comfortable position with ankles criss crossed so his heels can rest over top the softness of Bucky’s sides through the thin material of his tank. He doesn’t look like he wants to be anywhere besides where he is, so Bucky counts it as a win. 

“Got probably half an hour left before it’s time to switch the blankets in,” Steve says, quiet when Bucky presses a quick kiss to the center of his chest. He smells like fabric softener thanks to the setting and his shirt. Bucky likes to think that he can get him to go just as soft. “That enough for you?”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

Steve shrugs like he isn’t just as happy to have Bucky love on him as Bucky is to do it in the first place, but he can’t keep his smile in for too long once Bucky bends him back down to bump their foreheads together. “Have at it, then.”

“Oh honey,” Bucky says, holding Steve tight. “Believe me, if it’s you I’m getting to have, I will.” And with that last thought left in Steve’s mind, he kisses him so fierce that hopefully he’s no longer thinking anything at all. 

There’s no fight to it, not when they both get enough of that from pretty much everything else they do to occupy their time. Steve might be Captain America, might be the big man in the field, but here he’s nothing and _nobody_ else besides Bucky’s. Bucky likes to think that in his own way, Steve sees him as that same. Captain America might take care of the world, but Steve- he’s taken care of by Bucky. Everyone else can think they have him, but only _they_ get to have this. 

_This_ only gets that much sweeter when Bucky’s tongue finds into way into Steve’s mouth after a few minutes to slide alongside the blonde’s own, the both of them halfway moaning into it once Steve follows the motion forward to dig his heels into Bucky’s back and drag himself closer to the edge of the dryer so that their bodies are pressing together just as close, clothing nothing but a hindrance between them. 

As much as Bucky loves how cozy and domestic it feels for them to laze around the house in comfortable clothes- the sweats he has on are soft enough to be his favorite- he thinks he’d rather take some of them off for what he wants to partake in next. He pulls himself off Steve’s lips to check in- Christ, he’s pushy, but not enough to be a prick about it when it comes to things like consent. 

“You know… we’ll have clean clothes right here if we decide to get filthy.” He’s not aiming for subtle, so Steve picks up on the implication immediately, giving him a halfhearted groan that does nothing but go straight to the heat sitting in his stomach and pushing at his sweats. 

“Buck, we are not washing our clothes just to mess them right back up again,” Steve tries to scold, but that tone of voice has always been more Bucky’s forte thanks to all the stupid shit he had to get used to Steve trying to push himself into. 

He pulls it out now. “Thought you were going to let me have at it, huh?” He rubs his stubble up against the smooth line of Steve’s throat to sweeten the persuasion. Steve just needs a little nudge, he knows. He’s trying too hard to be responsible where really he doesn’t have to be- the Cap persona comes off at the door, and they both are aware Steve Rogers is much more soft underneath. “C’mon, hotshot. I’ll keep it clean.” He winks. “Clean as I can, at least.”

Steve still looks a little mulish, but that melts away when Bucky slips a hand behind him to rub up under his shirt and over top the dimples on his back at the bottom of his spine. They’re like secret buttons that get him to go sweet sometimes. Bucky takes advantage of that maybe a little too often. 

“Fine. But you’re helping me fold clothes after,” he says, rolling his eyes at Bucky’s triumphant expression, but eyeing him in a more appreciative way once the black tank top he’s been sporting since their shower is tugged off. He’s back to being unimpressed as soon as he sees Bucky practically hurl it halfway across the laundry room in his hurry to get them both undressed- or undressed _enough_ , at least. “We’re gonna have to fold even more now, Buck.”

“You stop wearing clothes around the house and then we won’t have to worry about folding them at all, honey,” Bucky counters, going for the little cotton shorts Steve’s got on next. Steve sighs in what Bucky knows is supposed to be exasperation, but obeys when Bucky taps his thigh and tells him to lift up so he can tug both the shorts and underwear he’s wearing underneath off and throw them to the side to land next to his tank. 

Now exposed, Bucky can tell that Steve’s just as eager as he is to burn off a little steam, but that doesn’t stop the younger man from still posturing like Bucky can’t _see_ his prick hard up between the thighs he himself is standing between. 

“I stop wearing clothes around you and there’ll be about a dozen different other kinds of messes I’ll have to worry about cleaning,” Steve grumps. “Myself being one of them.”

Bucky smiles and lets Steve grip his shoulder while he wraps his right hand around the base of him and pulls up in a stroke that has all the sass dissolving away like the water from their clothes must still be doing in the dryer. And speaking of- “What, you don’t want me to make a mess of you?” He uses his other hand to unfasten the drawstring on his sweats, metal fingers much more adept for doing the job one handed than he knows fumbling with the flesh hand would be. He had enough of that when he was choosing to keep the prosthetic off- even losing an arm has some perks, he guesses. “Don’t those vibrations feel good, солниышко?”

When Steve groans, it’s so guttural that Bucky’s not sure whether it’s from the goading about the shaking of the machine turning him on or the fact that anything coming from Bucky’s mouth on Russian- let alone something they both know is meant to be affectionate- has always had him going sweet in seconds. The hand Bucky’s still working around him probably helps too. 

_Sunshine_ is a pretty fitting thing to call him, anyways, what with it still filtering in around them and all. His hair is burning blonder than ever in it, so bright it almost makes Bucky’s eyes hurt to look at when he leans up to kiss him. Kissing him, though- that’s something that doesn’t hurt at all. Since he’s tall enough for the dryer edge and Steve’s hand to be just a bit under crotch level, it feels pretty damn good if he does say so himself, especially when Steve shoves down his sweats down enough to pull him out of his pants to start working him over as well. 

“ _You_ feel good,” Steve finally gets out, deep and a little dreamy. He has his wrist bent at an awkward angle to stroke Bucky off, but still looks blissed out enough for Bucky to bring him back in for a kiss that has them both sighing gratefully. He presses a gentle hand against the side of Bucky’s beard to match the metal one cupping his own cheek, and curls his fingers in when Bucky thumbs over his tip at the same time his teeth flash in enough for Steve to feel it in their next kiss. “Jesus. You get worked up fast, you know that?”

Bucky laughs and slows his hand down enough for Steve to let out a sad little sound. He wants to complain about Bucky being too fast? Bucky’ll show where that gets him. “You try keeping your mind on chores with an ass as cute as yours bent over right in front of you every two seconds,” he murmurs, rubbing a thumb over the freckles on his cheek and wishing he could feel the sensation once they crinkle up into a smile. 

Steve’s blushing more at the compliment than he is at the fact Bucky has a hand between his legs even as they speak. “Cute, huh?”

“That’s right.” Bucky kisses over his nose. “Cute.”

Steve ducks his head like he always does when he’s had a little too much of Bucky’s teasing, but brings it back up to meet his eyes a moment later. “Cute enough to make me come?” His own hand tightens while he talks, twisting around into a stroke so good that Bucky lets out a low noise that’s practically the same timbre of the dryer still purring underneath him. 

Bucky has to keep his hips from twitching too far forward- banging his balls on the dryer is not how he wants to spend his day, not when he could be banging his boyfriend in their bed instead. Of course, that requires them to actually finish the laundry and remake the bed, but first things first. He fixes Steve with a look that has the blonde going weak enough for his hand to trail down to the hair on Bucky's chest rather than his face, bare palm against bare skin tethering them together. 

“You can come after me,” Bucky tells him, mouth going crooked before Steve gets a chance to complain. “Since you wanna talk about how fast I get worked up, that must mean you’re willing to wait, yeah?” 

The answer is clearly _no_ , Steve was just trying to be bitchy so Bucky didn’t get too big for his britches in the moment as always, but Steve has the sense to grit his teeth and not dig himself a hole that’s deeper than the one he’s already in. This is one fight he’s backing down from, even if it is with a slightly brooding look that Bucky can’t help but try and kiss off him. 

“C’mon, солнце,” he coos after, pet name getting Steve to perk up at least a little. “You don’t get us both to before the dryer is done and you’ll just have to wait until all our chores are finished.” He grins wickedly and speeds his hand back up to the pace where it had been before. “And I don’t think cleaning the house with a hard on sounds enjoyable, but to each their own. I know domesticity has always been your thing.”

Steve huffs at that, but it _has._ He didn’t have much of that growing up and only got some of the other parts once he and Bucky moved in together, although the home Sarah made sure they both had was worth the world to him. And Bucky may not have been the best roommate, but he still tried too.

It’s just that all the little things Bucky had taken for granted growing up- things like family dinners and drives out to the country, keeping the house tidy for guests, grocery lists in the kitchen, trading chores like favors, those kinds of things- are things Steve never got to have at all. Now he gets to have some, even if it is hard not to have a conventional family around. But their friends do well enough. 

Sam and Nat have slept over so many times they’re practically family anyways, and Sharon’s pasta recipe is sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be prepared later tonight. They’re as much a family as the Rogers’ shitty apartment had been a home. Bucky would argue _Steve_ is his home, but it looks like the other man is about to beat him to it. 

“Brave thing to say to the man holding your dick,” he says. 

Bucky’s happy to respond. “You’d never hurt me.” It’s nice being in a place where he finally knows that’s true again, though it’s something he’s always known to be true from Steve. Their first interaction may have been Steve trying to speed his way into a fight, but Bucky had known from fixing his eyes on Steve’s forward that that wasn’t what was going to happen this time. 

_No_ , he had thought. _This one’s going to be mine._

Back then he’d meant that as a friend and nothing more. He was a kid, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t know what sex or feelings beyond _sad, happy,_ and _angry_ were. Over time, though, that had obviously changed. And here they are now, both happy and healthy. Taking care of their home and each other.

Bucky has his sights set on taking care of something a little less metaphorical right now, though. So does Steve, if the sigh and shuffle forward of his hips is anything to go by. Once Steve raises up his hand to lick over his palm and places it back on Bucky’s dick, Bucky realizes that it very much is. 

“Fuck,” he exhales, grip on Steve going a little tighter. “So much for keeping it clean. You’re fucking filthy, Rogers, you know that?”

Steve’s face is so red that in the square of sun from the window it could pass as a burn if Bucky didn’t know better, but he does, and he loves Steve for all the little things that make him him. Quirks about sex included. “Not yet I’m not,” Steve says, voice teasing but somehow still shy enough for Bucky to want to eat him right up. “You gonna get on that, daddy?”

 _Jesus_. If the Russian hits Steve as hard as it does, that little pet name just might as well hit Bucky harder. It’s one of the only ones Steve uses, himself- the sweet ones have always been more Bucky’s shtick. 

The thing is that when they grew up, that term was less of a sexual one and more of a ‘I’ll have dinner ready at 6 o’clock, can I take your coat for you?’ type of deal. Steve’s never been anything close to a housewife even when he spent half his evenings mending Bucky’s work shirts, and he would have walloped Bucky something good at the mere suggestion. But the pet name, even with all the connotations of it being about _providing_ and protecting and all the other things Steve was insecure about not being able to supply in equal amounts- it still was something special caught up between them. 

Nowadays, Bucky doesn’t hear it as often thanks to all the other connotations it’s accumulated. Some of them are true- or maybe _applicable_ is the better word, but Steve’s never been able to stomach calling him much other than Buck, and they both know that name is something Bucky missed hearing for a long time. But he misses this too, even if he doesn’t mind that much. 

For all that Steve loves domesticity, though, _daddy_ might just be a part of that. _Bucky_ might like it for a few more reasons as well. Like he said: he likes taking care of people, Steve especially, and part of his pride picks up on this as proving that he does, even if Steve no longer needs it. 

His mind might be on track with that, but his dick hasn’t gotten the memo. Steve doesn’t seem to mind, and it isn’t that much longer before Bucky is grunting out a warning that has Steve speeding up his hand and preemptively lifting his shirt up out of the way with the other. It’s the sight of his stomach, slumped down and softer than usual with how he’s sitting, that finally sends Bucky over the edge. He tightens his own hand around Steve at the same time he starts marking up his thighs, unsteady exhale matching with the machine that’s still going under where Steve’s sat on top of it and looking at Bucky with such big eyes that he doesn’t have the heart to hold out any longer. 

Even as he’s working his way through the aftershocks of his own orgasm, he offers Steve up his as well. “C’mon, милый,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you. Go on.”

Steve does, with an exhale so shaky it’d almost resemble a sob if Bucky couldn’t see how blissed out he is. “Always got me,” he whispers, Bucky kissing his shoulder and holding him through it. “Love you, daddy.” He’s still got to be dizzy is it- Bucky himself is too- but his next words come out crystal clear. “Love you, Buck.”

The use of both names makes Bucky smile and bend him back down for a kiss, even as he can feel Steve’s release sliding down the ridges of his abdomen. They’re going to have to wipe off before anything dries into any hair, but that can wait. This can’t. 

“Love you back, sweetheart,” Bucky says quietly. “Love you back, Stevie.” He holds him, arms around his waist and Steve’s around his neck, up until the dryer finally shuts off. The washer isn't far behind it. 

Bucky waits for the machine to stop shaking, but wants to get Steve off it before the metal cools down too much and definitely wants to wipe off all the come considering how much _that_ has cooled down already. For all that Steve cleans up around the house, it’s him who usually does it after sex- or in this case, a couple of quick handjobs. Steve’s almost always too sluggish and sated to want to do too much moving right away. 

That’s the only reason he doesn’t complain when Bucky uses his formerly discarded tank top to wipe them both off best he can without something wet. There’s a brief second where now that the heat of the moment is oven, Bucky feels suddenly insecure about the arm. He’s only had it for a week, and he’s no longer shy about the scarring, but it is taking some getting used to. He used the soiled shirt to cover it, tossing it over his shoulder the same way he had done with the jeans earlier, but it’s at that moment that Steve finally snaps out of his afterglow (a literal one, thanks to how the light is hitting him) and snatches the shirt off his shoulder so that he can give Bucky a soft look instead. 

He doesn’t say anything, but Bucky hears him loud and clear. _You’re beautiful, idiot._

 _Right back at you,_ he thinks. What he says out loud though is a little less romantic, words sticking a little thick in his throat before he gets them out. “You want your shorts back now?” He pets a hand up his thigh again, eyeing at the way Steve presses them together, prim again like Bucky hadn’t just seen him naked for the last thirty minutes. “I don’t mind you walking around half naked, but,” he kisses his forehead. “Know you don’t like the cold,” he says again. 

Steve nods, still a little loopy, but back down to earth enough to kick his legs out so Bucky can slide his shorts up them. He’s about to slide down off the dryer, but before he can Bucky halts him with a hand on his leg. 

“Just a sec,” he says. Steve looks confused, but stops, watching while Bucky braces his foot up against his thigh and takes the opportunity to fix the slipped down sock that he’d noticed earlier. He pulls it up and pats Steve’s knee once he’s done. “There you go. All fixed.”

Steve snorts, but smiles too, shimmying down into his shorts and the underwear still bunched up inside them thanks to him taking them off in one go. “You’re ridiculous,” he says softly. Then, with a touch to his shoulder, the one he’d just tried to hide, “Thanks, Buck.”

Bucky brings him in for a quick kiss and another playful squeeze to his butt that Steve groans against his mouth at. “How about we switch those blankets in so we can make out while the machines are going again?” He’ll toss the tank in with them. The break will also help Steve with the comedown and give Bucky a chance himself to cool off a little (before they warm right back up again later, of course). 

Steve seems settled down enough not to try and push back again, but still presses his lips together and looks at the baskets of clothes strewn all around them on the floor. “We really do need to fold some of these eventually.”

Bucky hums and pulls Steve against his side so that their heads can rest together. “That’s what Sundays are for.” He presses a kiss to his hair, still warm from the sun. “Besides, if this is what doing laundry is gonna always be like… maybe I’ll even start to like it.”

“I’ll place that bet when I see it, lazybones,” Steve snorts. “This is one first time of yours _I’m_ able to take. Don’t let yourself get too far ahead.”

“Aw, золотце,” Bucky says fondly, Brooklyn accent mixing with Russian, both lives he’s lived brought together. “You smug about getting to teach me something for once?” In truth, Bucky may have taught Steve how to do most of the basics, but Steve’s taught Bucky how to do a lot of things as well. How to love. How to live. How to be _himself_ again, even. But he doesn’t have to bring that up right now for the sale of the teasing. 

Steve scowls at it as he opens the dryer and starts dumping the clothes into an empty basket while Bucky does the same to transfer what’s in the washer, the two of them working as a team like always. “Shut it, Barnes.”

Bucky just grins as he brings his basket over to the now empty dryer. “Hey Steve?”

The blonde looks at him suspiciously at how sing-song his tone comes out. He has good reason to. “What, Buck?”

He holds the basket out to him with a wink. “Wanna take my big load?”

For someone who just called him _daddy_ not five minutes prior, Steve practically does a double take at the line. Like he isn’t used to Bucky’s sordid comments by now- but the blushing is still sweet, even if his voice comes out strained. “James Buchanan…”

Bucky laughs and drops the basket on the floor for Steve to start piling inside so that he can turn and gather up their bedding to cram in the washer along with the tank that Steve hands him a moment later. “Lighten up, doll.” He pauses while pushing the buttons to start the machine and waits for Steve to stand to give him a smirk as he does the same with the dryer. “I’ll save all that for later. Can we at least make the bed and mess that right up again?”

Steve groans, but Bucky has the sudden picture of them making the bed and getting distracted with how warm they are, falling down into them sharing a cozy round of romping and kisses that leave them both feeling comfortably lazy enough to abandon their chores in favor of spending the rest of the afternoon curled up in bed like two lazy cats under a sunlit window. Who wants to clean up the kitchen when you can kiss instead?

He kisses Steve again now, ready for another break that’ll be spent making out with his best guy, his best friend. His best everything. 

Really, he thinks as he’s crowding Steve back to the same corner they’d been in before, helping with the housework might not be half bad. Not as long as it’s in a home with Steve. He’s glad to know that that’s always going to be where he’s welcome to stay. 

**Author's Note:**

> comments & kudos are what keeps the content coming, so feel free to spare what you can! feedback is my favorite. i’m not above begging. as usual, i hope you enjoyed. stay safe & see you next time around.
> 
> (as used in context, солниышко = sunshine/little sun, солнце = sun, милый = dear/darling, and золотце = little gold)


End file.
